Analysis on the development prospects and difficulties of LED plant lighting in China

With the continuous development of modern agriculture, the demand and energy consumption of plant lighting is constantly expanding, and new challenges are also raised for traditional plant lighting technology. As a new generation of light source, LED is more effective than environmental protection and energy saving. Compared with traditional artificial light sources such as fluorescent lamps or high-pressure sodium lamps, it has the characteristics of adjustable light quantity, adjustable light quality, low cooling load and the ability to increase the cultivation amount per unit area. It is a very suitable artificial light source for closed agricultural production environments, such as plant tissue culture rooms.

Under the influence of the objective environment of the fierce competition in the general lighting market and the increasingly prominent environmental health problems, plant lighting applications have gradually become one of the directions of LED development. Lighting giants have already begun to deploy LED plant lighting business. After the establishment of the plant lighting factory by Philips LED, companies such as OSRAM and Yiguang have also made some moves in this field. In addition, many domestic companies have also set foot in the market. Recently, Guangmingyuan's subsidiary, Green Love, opened the largest plant factory in South China, developing and producing plant growth lamps with different needs; Qinshang Optoelectronics also launched intelligent new products with plant lighting functions. It can be seen that the development of LED plant lighting has broad market prospects.

LED plant lighting business opportunities unlimited

As a special type of semiconductor material, LEDs emit light at wavelengths ranging from ultraviolet C (~250 nm) to infrared (~1000 nm), and the wavelength range of light emitted by each LED can be narrow. Thus, it is a very efficient plant illumination source with real spectrum control capabilities.

Unlike metal halide light sources, fluorescent lamps, and high pressure sodium lamps, the solid state lighting systems used in LEDs have some unique advantages. They are not only light in weight, small in size, long in service life, but also have the advantages of controllable wavelength and spectral composition, narrow bandwidth, low luminous surface temperature, low heat generation, high brightness, low radiation and high efficiency. In addition, LEDs also have the characteristics of spectral controllability. With the continuous advancement of technology and the continuous improvement of the technological level, the spectral control of LEDs will be more flexible in the future, and the manufacturing and use costs will be lower and lower, and its superiority will be more fully reflected.

These advantages also make LEDs gradually replace the status of traditional lighting sources. In plant lighting, LEDs can match the appropriate range of light waves to the plant's light receiver and affect the shape and composition of the plant. For plants grown in a controlled environment, the superiority of LEDs also makes them the preferred source of light.

It is understood that the global LED application plant lighting output value has started to show rapid growth since 2013. The preliminary statistics reached US$100 million in 2014 and is expected to reach US$500 million in 2017. With the increase in the penetration rate of global LED application agricultural lighting, the Chinese market is slowly emerging, and the future market prospect is broad.

The new blue ocean of LED plant lighting has also attracted the development of a large number of international giants. After the establishment of plant lighting factory by Philips LED, international giants such as OSRAM, Mitsubishi, GE and Siemens have also made some moves in this field; Taiwan factory Yiguang is also early There is involvement, and with the rise of Taiwan’s agricultural gold boom, there are reports that “Taiwan’s technology giants Hon Hai, Delta, Jinrenbao Group, Xinxing Electronics and the old Datong Group have also started to grow vegetables across the line”; In terms of manufacturers, Qinshang Optoelectronics, Hongli Optoelectronics, and Guangmingyuan have been conducting research and development of related products.

When it comes to plant lighting, most of the accompanying words are “foreground”, “money scene” and “future”. However, what problems exist in the current development of plant lighting?

Plant lighting invention faces many problems to be solved

At present, the development of domestic plant lighting is slow, and the market development space is still limited. Domestic LED plant lighting is also facing the problems of lack of comprehensive talents, high cost investment, lack of patents, and low output rate of enterprises. When the development of plant lighting in China enters the fast lane is still a problem.

Low input-output ratio

As an emerging market, plant lighting has a low market penetration rate. Compared with the output value of hundreds of billions of ordinary lighting, it can only be described as “a small house”. At present, the sales market of LED plant lights in China is mainly concentrated in countries and regions with less agricultural personnel such as Japan, South Korea, Central America and Europe.

It is understood that plant lighting is mainly used in three areas of plant factories, plant landscapes and breeding lighting. At present, the most important market for plant lighting is the plant factory. It is reported that American scientists plan to build a plant factory skyscraper. It is said that this plant factory building can meet the needs of millions of people with only five buildings. It is incredible.

Although the potential of the breeding lighting market is huge, the market has not been developed. Breeding lighting mainly uses LED fluorescent tubes, but the biggest difficulty in promotion is the change in cognition.

Plant lighting costs are high and sales are low. Generally, some large-scale enterprises do some preliminary research and development and exploratory market development.

It is understood that in addition to Philips, Osram, Mitsubishi, Yiguang and other international lighting manufacturers are still concerned about this market, most small and medium-sized lighting companies in China rarely get involved. At the same time, at this stage, the investment and output of plant lighting are not directly proportional, which also makes a large number of enterprises in this market segment “hurry to close”. It is understood that Mitsubishi's investment in LED plant lighting is about 10 times that of ordinary plant lighting, but the price of such vegetables on the market is four times that of ordinary vegetables.

At present, domestic large enterprises do not actively develop the plant lighting market. On the one hand, domestic plant lighting lags behind the international market, resulting in low penetration rate in the domestic market; on the other hand, it has also freed up a new market segment for domestic SMEs.

expensive

At present, LED plant lighting is mainly used to cultivate expensive high-end products such as hemp and mustard. Such products have high cost, but the returns are fast and the profits are high. Not only that, but LEDs can also control the growth rate of plants, which can extend the flowering period of flower plants, so that economic crops can be free from seasonal restrictions and accelerate the results.

Although ordinary vegetables can be cultivated with LED plant lighting, the economic benefits are not high. Take a Chinese cabbage as an example. It can be matured in 45 days. It can be grown in 15 days with LED plant lights. However, from the perspective of economics, the price of a artificially cultivated Chinese cabbage market is more than 40 yuan, while the traditional sun-lit Chinese cabbage requires only a few yuan, and the price difference between the two is very different. In addition, the price of LED plant lighting products itself is relatively expensive, which inhibits the large-scale promotion of the market to some extent.

Plant growth cycles and wavelengths are different, the process is different, and the price is also very different. It is understood that an ordinary LED lamp for the growth of leafy vegetables is generally 400 to 500 yuan. It can be seen that the high price is one of the factors hindering the development of LED plant lighting.

Shortage of comprehensive talents

At present, the domestic LED plant lamp market is still in its infancy, and the lamps used in the field of plant growth not only have problems such as high cost and poor light penetration ability. There are also problems such as product clutter, irregular production design, lack of uniform product standards and quality management.

LED plant lighting technology is not very difficult, the key is the lack of comprehensive talents who understand biological cultivation knowledge and LED technology. The technology and production process required for LED plant lighting is no different from general lighting. The key is the choice of chip spectrum.

Although the related chip technology of plant lighting has matured, different plants have different requirements for light irradiation and different living environments. This requires enterprises to have a deeper understanding of different plant spectra, living conditions and culture environment. And this is where many companies are currently plagued.

In response to talent issues, many international companies have chosen to cooperate with research institutes to establish laboratories or plant factories with the support of policies. However, for domestic companies, this investment is too large and the cost is too high. At present, some enterprises cooperate with agricultural research institutions, basically discussing relevant technical issues, and rarely involve the experimental application stage. Most of the SMEs' investment in plant lighting only stays on the independent research and development of a few plants such as tomato and Chinese cabbage, that is, simple illumination of related plants with LED lamps.

At present, there are not many enterprises that have introduced LED plant lighting products. There are only a few such companies, such as Qinshang Optoelectronics, Hongli Optoelectronics, and Guangmingyuan. There are only a handful of scales in the market, and there are gaps in many areas. The attitude of most companies is that LED plant lighting is not the company's main product, and the company just regards it as one of the strategic markets of the future.

Lack of core patents

At present, the domestic manufacturers of plant growth and illumination lamps are small in scale and small in number, and are highly concentrated in the Shenzhen area, and most of them are scattered in the manufacture of functional lighting manufacturers. Therefore, the peak 660 nm red light chip that agriculture mainly needs cannot be scaled. Domestic chip epitaxial wafer manufacturers are also reluctant to invest in manpower and material resources to develop agricultural red light chips. And because international giant chip manufacturers are better than domestic manufacturers in terms of luminous efficiency and reliability, the product chips of LED plant lighting in China still rely mainly on imports.

The domestic semiconductor chip epitaxial wafer industry started late, accumulated less experience, and the patent strength in chip extension is relatively weak. A large number of core patents are in the hands of early leading companies such as Japan's Nichia and American Corey, which greatly hindered domestic chip companies. development of.

to sum up

At present, the sales market of LED plant lights are concentrated in countries and regions with less agricultural personnel such as Japan, South Korea, Central America, and Europe. With the continuous improvement of China's LED plant lighting technology, its production cost will gradually decrease, the penetration rate will gradually increase, and the Chinese market will enter an outbreak period. In general, whether it is from the perspective of promoting the development of modern agriculture or the realization of energy conservation and environmental protection, LED is of great significance in agriculture, and the status and development needs of agriculture also provide opportunities for LED development.